BN-Blog

Bright Idea Award

Robert Major – Collaborative Wiki Tool.  Congratulations to Robert for the Bright Idea Award for June.  Robert suggested that we review collaboration tools between the teams and the offices with a wiki tool.  He submitted extensive suggestions on how the development teams can share documentation and keep track of version controls.  Thank you, Robert for your Bright Idea. Look for your name to be added to the Bright Idea Plaque, now hanging in each office.  Enjoy your winning check for $100 US.  Send your Bright Ideas to *******************

And below this is the original email I submitted:

I originally setup a Wiki on my own machine here, similarly to a Wiki project I had headed at ******** in the Winter of 2007.  I had brought this idea and project to the attention of both ******** and ********* in San Francisco as a possible tool to aid support, however that was shortly before the November cuts and the idea was immediately forgotten .  From what I understand, the upcoming Net suite is supposed to have some functions that Wiki does, however due to numerous setbacks, it seems it will be some time before we see a stable working version.

I’m proposing a Global Internal ******Wiki as a part of a inner community project to pull our collective knowledge (All offices) into one freely open and editable database.  For example, many of us in the Seattle office have folders full of note pad and word documents detailing fixes, steps, and procedures we have developed to resolve issues or to assist in training customers.  Mike Berger has a TON of these sorts of documents that could be easily ported into the Wiki document format to be viewed requiring only a short simple search in its built in search engine.  The Wiki engine would allow searches by word and specific title types making things like “Web Information Center” a easy thing to find notes on, stuff that isn’t in the briefing papers and possibly sorts of notes that you would not let a client see for, or in other words for internal eyes only.  Besides technical support, the wiki can be used for a myriad of other sorts of information such as a combined collective knowledge base for both flagship products, possible code and test data samples for easy access for all users, even a simple client list and the version of the software they are running would be a great asset, as well as easily updated.
What makes the Wiki such a viable possibility can be summed up in two specific reasons:

#1.  Its editable by the entire staff and can be administrated by specific users.  This gives internal staff a source which is completely community maintained.

#2.  It is fast, reliable, and free (See Below)

The Technical Parts:

At ************** I had pioneered an original project to build a collective IT knowledge base for all of the Burbank California based technical division’s and M.I.S., which had been purposed by my former supervisor ************.  I had piloted the Linux Fedora Core 8 Wiki server running Apache and MySQL which were natively packaged with the Operating System.  I had also had a hand in building the Windows Server Wiki server.  The Windows Wiki is running on a free open source based package that incorporates windows versions of MySQL, Apache 2, MyPHPAdmin in a seamless install package that I’ve tested on Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003.  Currently the ********Wiki is nearly a year old with five hundred pages of knowledge that are searched/edited/updated daily, which was created for nearly the same function.  As this wiki is license free, it is cost effective.  It is also very flexible as it can be configured with MS SQL, IIS, and Windows native FTP.  I like to personally stay in the realm of Linux/Open Source based software for my own servers, so I use MySQL, Apache 2 and Cerberus FTP to run the core functions on top of the windows platform.  The Linux version uses all native software that is packaged with Fedora Core 8.  The Wiki engine is called MediaWiki, http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki and is used my many organizations to create collective knowledge bases in every kind of field you can think of.  I had a test configuration running a installation of Mediawiki on my work machine that could be accessed locally and contained a fair amount of notes material and instructions I have formatted for anyone’s usage who can access the server on my local IP.  See images attached, screenshot examples.

The Use Part:

Mediawiki is a derivative of the same code that makes up Wikipedia.org.  Its designed to be a free open user updated encyclopedia that can allow thousands of pages dedicated to topics created by users.  The tools to create pages are simple, linking to external and internal URL and resources are easy to place, and images can be stored and formatted within wiki pages.   I have in the past had some of the team here in the Seattle office try some internal testing on the site, congruent users and so forth, it has also been helpful with some ******* procedures I have created, which can often be copied and pasted to emails or printed.  The Wiki engine, be it MediaWiki or another distribution I believe would be a cost effective, reliable, and easy to learn/use application to build our collective knowledge.

If you want more information on some more details on the wiki technical or logistical I’ll be happy to answer.  This is my suggestion or bright idea; I have always felt since I began here last year that this company needed a central cumulative knowledgebase accessable by all ******* Employee’s, editable by all ******** Employee’s.  What better way than a completely Community Maintained and Administrated database that is easy to use, update, and expand.  I do understand we have some forms of centralized information, however it is not maintained by the community at large, which I feel makes for a stagnant knowledgebase.